The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-04-10
IMAGINATION.

as uACB III las Uccu Lie u6ult Cl tQ6
wise to speak of imagination as "a sort
of barbaric and inferior faculty--a
power possessed by children and sava-
ges, and shared with them by those
abnormal and unsccountable adults,
the poets and romancers. But the
wise come sometimes perilously near
being thought foolish; and this super
fetal view of the imaginative gift
strikingly proves their occasional folly.
For, as matter of fact, imagination is
not very largely developed either in the
child or in the saYage; what we notice
il them Ia not so much the presence OF
the faculty as its want of due limits Of
control, OF adequacy, and of relevancy.
Children can imagine all sorts of impos-
sible stories about dwarfs and giants
fairies and ogres, enchanted palaces
and fiery dragons, but they cannot i'm
aSine any thing that bears the slightes
TO the possible circum-
stances Of real life: they cannot con
struct probable plot or build reason
OF their own genuine and known posi-
ton. Still less csn they Use to any Of
those greater and higher efforts OF i'm
agination which have resulted at last
in endoWing the world with all its
nobiest and most useful inventions.
Watt sat watching tea-kettle on the
fire, and saw how The force of the steam
within it lifted up the lid from time To
time. letting it fall again as soon as the
let had escaped from its temporary
confinement. A child or fool wouid
have gone no farther; Watts imagina
ton went to work at once upon the
simple fact thus presented to him, and
he built up in his head the first rough
sketch OF piston raised in ike manner
in a cylinder by the expansive power OF
steam in lar larger quantities. That
was a genuinely imaginative act: ana
none but a man of powerful fancy
could ever have comprised it.
So again with the case OF the tele-
phone. Bell perceived that certain
sound-waves, falling directly upon that
stretched membrane, the drum Of the
ear, set up at once the sensation OF
hearing. He knew too that sound could
be conveyed along line or wire, and
could be given out again at the other
end by stretched membrane attached
to the string, as is frequently done in a
welI-knoWn trick of American school
children. But Bell was gifted with
A MARVELLOUS FACULTY OF IMAGINATION
and, thinking over these things in hi,
own mind, it occurred to him one day
that the souud-waves might be conveyed
along a metal wire by electric current
the speaker speaking to stretched
membrane at one end, and the hearel
listening at stretched mem brane o.
like sort at the other. He worked "
this pregnant hint in practical detail
and the tipal result was that wonderful
and admirable scientific instrument the
telephone. In every American town
thein plement he devised is now i'll
daily use by every household; the
mother of the family telephones TO. thu
butcher for beef, telephones to ths
when baby has one OF its sudden teeth
ing fits. And yet the very people who
now travel at their ease by train a1si
steam boat or communicate at dis
lance oy telegraph and telephone will
say complacently, with certain touch
of superior taste, that men of science
are wanting in Imagination.
The truth is, Imagination is a. very
rare and special gift. Most people can
hardly conceive or speculate upon any
thing ontside the range of their own
narrow accustomed circle. Take as IN
admirable example OF the common
poverty of Imagination the frequent
suggestion as to what would happen if
the sea-bed were suddenly TO go dry.
Almost every body begins 20 think at
once, in the true childish treasure
hunting spirit, OF how much gold and
silver wouldAbe found at the bottom
among the Wrecks and spars of sunken
ships. But does this shew wealth of
Imagination? Quite. the contrary it
shows complete poverty. The people
who so think to themselves do not for
realise, even in its simplest
and most obvious aspects, the vast
re ching change which they are thus
vaguely figuring in mere language. The
bed of the Atlantic, from England TO
America, would suddenly appear before
their astonished eyes as q huge and
valley basin, covered with
ooze, Maud, and seaweed, and thick with
the stranded and rotting carcasses of
innumerabIe gigantic marine crea-
lures. Whales and porpoises, sharks
and sunfsh, dolphins and squids of
enormous size would lie fostering in
the sun over all its surface, and filing
the air with one incredible stencil.
Creatures hitherto unknown to science
would reveal themselves by myriads on
the deep sea floor. The strange starfish
and sea-lilies and squ1rts and mollusks
would add millions of treasures to the
collections OF naturalists. The sort of
knowledge that we now gain ftfully and
piecemeal at an enormous cost by
Challenger expeditions and dredging
operations on the sea-bottom, would
then lie open like book before us for
every man to read with his own eyes
directly. 1t would be possible to map
out the whole bed of the ocean-to learn
its contour, its material, its history, its
the recesses pitts profounder
portions. Such are few Of the simpler
picture which the trained and instructed
of competent naturalist
would paint at once in answer to a
of the drying up of the bed
of the ocean. But, instead of all that
vast and varied panorama Of marine
life and marine conditions, the only
point on which the feeble Imagination
of the average mind can ever fix itself
is the few miserable pounds of gold and
silver to be picked up among the wrecks
o. human Industry sparseiy scattered ct